Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2017/01/05/artist-ships-glass-boxes-insid.html
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Anyone have any further info on his claims that FedEx boxes are a “proprietary volume”? First couple of pages of google results just comes back to articles on Beshty. Box Dimensions seem a little bit too basic to be given a design patent.
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Why would you ship anything fragile without extra padding ever, regardless of the carrier/box?
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isn’t the whole deal of the artist’s work the broken glass? (follow-up question: has the artist the copyright or the FedEx employee mishandling the box?)
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I don’t think you could actually patent the size of a box. You could patent the system that includes the carriers, the layout and organization of the boxes within the carrier, which would include the dimensions as a part of the system.
Carriers are sized to fit the aircraft they are transported in-- while each carrier fits a different sized aircraft (from the Cessna 208 to the McDonnell-Douglas MD-11) they are designed to hold the same sized boxes-- and the boxes are sized to fit within the carriers without filler or packing-- they actually ship EMPTY BOXES to fill out a partially-loaded container.
This is why you HAVE to use the FedEx boxes, and why they give them to you for free-- they are an integral part of the system.
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That makes a little more sense. Cheers for the explanation.
Can’t really hold it against the artist for being a little disingenuous for artistic effect I guess.
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I’d like to see the art-handler who accidentally cracked Duchamp’s “The Bride Stripped Bare…” seek compensation for co-authorship. Duchamp probably would’ve at least entertained the argument, too.
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someone will buy the resulting “art” maybe
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I do Kintsugi…these images excite me…
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Frankly the glass is in better shape than I would have expected.
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Oh, I forgot one thing. Ever wonder why the Post Office has special boxes for Priority Mail and Priority Express? Guess who’s carrying them.
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It’s art. It is SUPPOSED to have random cracks.
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Psssst…just trying to salvage a failed ant farm venture!
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OK, that’s disturbing.
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This makes sense, FedEx has copyrighted the use of volume in their system, but not the actual volume of space anywhere else in the universe. For example, I can ship a FedEx box via UPS if I so choose to pay for it.
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I think what he means by “proprietary” in this case is similar to Starbucks Venti=20 ounces. He found it interesting that “Large Box” etc. were terms used by this proprietor to mean very specific dimensions (no larger or smaller). It was FedEx’s arbitrary measurement of what constituted a “Large Box” and so on that I think inspired packing them with glass boxes that exactly met those dimensions.
Or something.
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I get that it’s supposed to be art, but he also wants to “comment on the “perversity of a corporation owning a shape,””. It’s the latter part that confuses me. You can do the same with standardized boxes.
lol “art”
like every other human endeavor, art is a scam: "Acquire Now: 14,000 USD "
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